


Bro Homo

by Dredfulhapiness



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21947902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dredfulhapiness/pseuds/Dredfulhapiness
Summary: They're not gay, but if they were, they would want equal rights.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 8
Kudos: 61





	Bro Homo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jortsbian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jortsbian/gifts).



> This was supposed to be that Bro Duet fic I promised you but it kinda super got away from me. I hope you still enjoy it!

The junkyard was different at night. Instead of all its sharp edges and rugged features individualized, it became a massive, sprawling silhouette. It was incredibly Derry, incredibly enigmatic. 

Eddie and Richie stood at its entrance, hands shoved firmly in their pockets. 

In the dim moonlight, Richie could just see the outline of the bandage on Eddie’s cheek. The gaping hole in his chest had healed when the motherfucking clown died, but the stab wound on his face had clung to him like a reminder. 

They’d snuck away from the others after the quarry, and a shower, and dinner. And now they were alone. Just the two of them. In the junkyard. It was enough to make Richie feel electric. 

_ He was alone with Eddie and Eddie remembered him and Eddie wasn’t dead he was alive and standing beside him and Richie could reach out a hand and touch him and it would be real real real. _

He didn’t do that, though. He kept his distance. Out of fear, maybe, that it  _ wouldn’t  _ be real. 

“Get a load o’ this place,” Richie said in a voice that even  _ he  _ couldn’t name. Eddie snorted, though, and that’s what mattered to him.

“This place smells like shit,” Eddie said. 

“Well, it’s a literal garbage hole.”

He was surprisingly calm for someone who had, technically, just died. It was incredibly un-Eddie-like. He should be high-pitched and panicked. He should be frantic. But instead he was just… quiet.

They started walking. Silent at first until,

“Do you remember that time I almost drowned at the quarry?” Richie asked casually as they strolled around the perimeter of the property, kicking cans as they walked. 

Eddie hummed. “I don’t remember how many times I told you guys to stop dunking each other.” Even with the shitty lighting, Richie could see the smile on Eddie’s face. He could write sonnets about that smile. At the very least, he could write a good joke about it. “I had to do CPR on your dumb ass.” 

“I would have been fine.”

“You were turning blue.”

“I was doing a Smurf impression.”

“You’re a fucking idiot.”

Richie was quiet for a moment. “That was my first kiss, you know.” 

Eddie scoffed. “It wasn’t a kiss. I was saving your life.”

“It was to me,” Richie said, his voice lilting. “You know,” he added, “that’s when I realized I love you.” 

Eddie froze. 

“But, you know,” Richie choked out quickly, “no homo, bro. Two dudes chilling in a hot tub and all that.”

“Are you seriously quoting  _ Vines  _ at me right now?” 

Richie shrugged. 

“You’re in love with me?” Eddie clarified. “This isn’t a joke?”

Richie shook his head, stiff. 

“I’m married,” Eddie said. Richie winced. “Y-you’ve been my best friend for all the time I’ve actually  _ known  _ who you are. Other than, like, that guy who releases mediocre Netflix comedy specials--”

“Low blow, man.”

“It’s true,” Eddie countered, and Richie couldn’t even argue. He’d become famous at the hands of his publicist’s funniest friends. “But I remember you now, and you were  _ always  _ my best friend.” There were a lot of thoughts in Richie’s head. He felt like a hat with all of the different Charades words: scared, confused, Marilyn Monroe, clown, The Breakfast Club, the friend zone. “And in Its lair,” Eddie continued, “I was dying and all I could think was  _ thank God Richie’s here _ .”

Richie swallowed. The bag had been shuffled. Different words came to the surface: love, stubble, Dirty Dancing, stab wound to the face, begging, pining. 

“I wasn’t going to leave you,” Richie said, his throat hoarse. “You’re my best friend, too.”

“I didn’t even care that my wife wasn’t there,” Eddie said. “ _ You  _ were there, holding me, and I didn’t want to go back to Myra, or my house, or the garage to pick up my fucked car. I just wanted to leave it all behind and-- and…”

“And?” 

“Rich, when we were kids...” Eddie swallowed. Richie watched his Adam’s apple bob. He looked like he was struggling to even formulate a sentence. “You’re the biggest asshole I know, you know that, right?”

Richie’s mouth opened, then closed.

“What am I supposed to say to that?”

Eddie didn’t pay him any mind. 

“I’m in love with you, too. I think I’ve always known it, even when I didn’t remember you because Myra would put your specials on the TV and I would think about how you weren’t even funny, but I would feel this, this  _ ache  _ in my chest…” he put a fist to his chest. “Not like a heartache, but like indigestion--”

“My jokes were so bad they gave you  _ indigestion _ ?”

“--and then I saw you in the restaurant and I felt it again, but stronger, and all I wanted to do was  _ know you  _ again.”

“Eds,” Richie started. He took a step forward, toward Eddie. He felt a little lightheaded. Disoriented. For the briefest moment he thought,  _ this might be the deadlights  _ and then he decided it didn’t matter. 

Richie was close enough, now. He reached a hand out, his knuckles grazing against Eddie’s, and he was surprised when Eddie flipped his hand, pressed his fingers in the spaces between Richie’s. 

It wasn’t dramatic. Not like in the movies: no sudden, feverish kiss, no continued, whispered confessions. Just two people, standing, imagining their childhoods. 

“This doesn’t make us gay,” Richie said, breaking the silence and ruining the moment. Eddie blinked and turned his head to look at Richie. Eddie choked. 

“Dude,” he said, the word swallowed by a bark of a laugh. 

“We’re just really good friends,” Richie doubled down.

“Yeah,” he said, “fine. Best friends.”

\--

Richie was the getaway driver. He thrummed his fingers against the steering wheel and watched the outside of the house. The song ended, he switched it. Switched it again, and again, until the music was a drum beat and and a cry and he almost,  _ almost  _ felt like Baby Driver. 

He wondered how long he should sit out here before going in to investigate. Eddie had told him that, under no circumstances, was Richie to go up to the house, but what if she killed him? If they passed the thirty minute mark was Richie supposed to just accept that Eddie had taken a frying pan to the head and was sleeping with the fishes? 

(That was a movie he needed to watch again, now that he thought about it. He hadn’t seen it since college, when his roommate had dragged him out to go see it and  _ oh my god  _ where was Eddie?)

There was no movement inside the house. Richie checked the time on his phone (again) and saw that five minutes hadn’t passed since the last time he’d checked. 

How long did it take to announce that you wanted a divorce? 

Ten minutes passed, then thirty more, and Richie thought about Eddie’s mom and was actually about to get out of the car and ring the bell when the door finally opened. Eddie had a duffle bag slung over his shoulder. Someone followed him to the doorway-- Eddie’s wife, Richie guessed. Her face was red, her eyes were puffy. 

“Bye, Myra,” Richie heard as Eddie’s hand landed on the doorknob. He pulled himself into the Mustang, dumped his bag into the backseat. “Drive,” he said under his breath. “Go. Go. Go.” 

Richie didn’t see him laugh until they were forty minutes across the city.

\--

“You stole all the blankets last night,” Eddie said with just the slightest tone of annoyance as they slid into bed. 

“I keep telling you to get your own,” Richie said. “We have this conversation every night.” 

“I shouldn’t  _ have  _ to get my own blanket,” Eddie said, “you shouldn’t take them.”

“I can’t control what I do in my sleep, man.” As if to prove his point, Richie jerked the blankets off of Eddie. 

Eddie shrieked. He grappled for the blanket back, but his hands came back empty. Instead, he whacked Richie in the face with his forearm as he flopped. 

Richie groaned, but didn’t give up the goat. He twisted so both ends of the blanket were underneath him, the pillow somehow wrapped up with him, and he laughed gleefully as he watched Eddie try to yank the corners of the blanket free. 

He managed to loosen it enough to slide himself in their with Richie, his shoulder pressed against Richie’s heaving chest. 

“Stop laughing.” Eddie nudged Richie’s leg with his knee. “I can’t sleep if you’re moving like that.”

And Richie just laughed harder.

They did fall asleep like that, though, both of them tucked up against their best friend. 

“‘Night, bro,” Richie said. 

“‘Night, dude.” 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> this was written for one specific person but if other people read this and decide they like it and wanna see what else I have to offer, come check me out on tumblr @dredfulhapiness


End file.
